How does Paradox construct their world maps?

[Colesy_]

Hey folks. Since Imperator: Rome came out, I've been working on my own little new world mod (which may never be released). Since undertaking this project, I've used a multitude of ways to construct my initial heightmap including hand painting it, using third party tools to sculpt it, and even using the in-game map editor. The result has been rather lackluster with each method, see the spoiler for what I mean. It just makes me curious how Paradox so expertly designs their world maps.

Spoiler

This particular result is a combination of hand painting and some minor erosive filters in a neat terrain editing program called Wilbur. It works I guess, but comparatively to IR's map, it's kinda trash.

We've seen the shape and size of the map evolve immensely from title to title, and now with Imperator: Rome out and Crusader Kings 3 on the horizon, we are starting to see planet Earth take a much more believable and pleasant shape. I'm curious with Imperator: Rome in particular, how exactly Paradox constructs their maps from the heightmap to the terrain masking, what have you, whether it's all with proprietary tools or third party tools. To me it looks like there is potentially some real world height data in there, though I'd venture to guess there's more to it than just satellite imagery. If any Paradox devs see this, I'd be grateful for a response.

 

[Colesy_]

Whoops, a slip of the brain has apparently caused me to miss a direct reply to me from ages ago, for some reason I never saw it until browsing through my mentions just now.

Depends on your workflow, either you could:

• Have a heightmap to begin with, would probably need some tweaking to it's value ranges to fit in the game.
• Paint it all manually in the editor, the Map editor 101 thread explains how to create a clean slate.
• Composite work, paint from a clean slate, then take the heightmap into a third party software (like World Creator or World Machine) for touch ups and erosion, then re-import that into the editor.

If you go for painting everything manually I'd suggest working from big to small, first large continents and mountain chains and then down to finer granularity. Overlaying noise from other height maps can help with that.

There's no single best workflow to go for, it depends on what kind of result you're after.

Useful reply, that's for sure, but if anybody would like to expand on this topic further, be my guest.

To those of you who have contributed to mods that bring in new worlds for any game really, do you have any experiences you could share?